


Magic Reforged

by Vasilisian



Category: Original Work
Genre: Amalea is very gay, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Dragons, F/F, High Fantasy, It's mostly unedited, Some politcal bullshit later on, This is the first draft of a book I've been working on for the past year, War, When you do something stupid as a kid and have to join the army Or Else
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-01 03:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18792091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vasilisian/pseuds/Vasilisian
Summary: Amalea had been bonded for nearly all her life with her dragon Bellamy, but when war comes to Preacallai, the young woman isn't sure if she's ready.A tale of growth, getting up after being beaten down and bonds forged in the flames of war. Will Amalea and Bellamy be able to make it through the war with all their friends alive, of will they lose them one by one until the only one left to die is them?Overshadowing everything is a secret that could bring countries to their knees, a secret that only the Mellion king knows, the secret that caused the war.





	1. The Beginning Of The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> War comes to Preacallai, and Amalea meets up with her dragon partner Bellamy to prepare.

Her early breakfast with her family fell silent as a piercing siren rang out through the city, Amalea sitting frozen as her sister started crying, scared by the loud noise. Her mother was roused from her shock by the sobbing and moved to comfort Elliana, shushing her as she held her close. Her jaw clenched as her father's eyes bored a hole in the side of her face, body trembling as Luka's hand reached out and covered hers, gently taking the bent fork from her and lacing his fingers with hers.

“Amalea-” She jumped to her feet, ripping her hand form his grasp and wiping hurriedly at her eyes, her sister's crying stopping abruptly as the six-year-old looked up at her. “There's no need to cry Elliana. It's just a siren, nothing you need to worry about.” Amalea would be the one going to war, along with her grandfather. They were the only ones in the family that weren't traders, although he'd been the only one out of them that chose the career willingly.

“I have to go now, it might be a while before I come back. You be good to Mama and Papa, alright?” The confusion on her sisters face was like a stab to the chest, the lump in her throat threatening to choke her. Blinking away tears, Amalea turned around and stroke out of the dining room, the opulent halls of her childhood home not able to bring her comfort the way they usually do. Gerald's ashen face greeted her at the entrance room, his uniform rumpled in a way she'd never seen before.

“Mistress Amalea! The siren... are we really at war?” Gerald knew war better than any of them, having lived in a turbulent area of Glyze for most of his childhood before having his life saved by her father, to whom he swore fealty despite Luka's insistence that he didn't need payment of any sort for helping. To have war come to Preacallai, a mostly peaceful country, had to be a nightmare for the older man.

“The drills weren't supposed to be for another month. I'm afraid the siren is real and that Preacallai is officially at war.” Wrinkled hands brushed through wispy hair, white strands ending up in disarray at Gerald's nervous movement.

“With who?! I might not have been born here, but even I know that Preacallai's military far outstrips most others and we don't have a bad relationship with any of our neighbors that I know of.” Footsteps echoed behind her, her fathers stride unmistakable as he came up behind her, laying one hand on her shoulder.

“It's probably Mellion. They've been incredibly reluctant to trade over the past few months, worse even than twenty years ago. I went to inform the council of this two months ago and they told me Preacallai is already on guard. Colonel Vitya was with a party of ambassadors soon after to see if anything could be done to ease the tension.” So that's were Grandfather had gone. She'd wondered where he'd gone when she hadn't seen him around the military compound in a while, but as Shomnai's only Colonel, he was often summoned for various reasons all over the country.

He sighed heavily, his hand squeezing her shoulder. “I guess it didn't work this time.” Pulling Amalea into a hug, rough lips pressed against her temple as Luka held her close. She could see Gerald fall still, realization setting in as it sunk in that while her family would remain here, she would be on the front lines along with her grandfather. Luka pulled back, large hand cupping her face as he looked into her eyes.

“Be strong, be safe, stay close to Bellamy and listen to your superiors. And when this whole mess is over, we'll celebrate with that whiskey I got from Actrivolli.” Survive. The word was unspoken but understood, the trio turning to face the dining room as Daniela ran out, Elliana on her hip and long skirt in hand.

“Amalea! Thank goodness, I thought you'd left already.” Elliana reached out for her, tears in her eyes and more streaming down her chubby cheeks. Amalea took her without hesitation, her mothers arms wrapping around the two of them.

“I don't want you to leave. You're gonna get hurt!” Shit. She'd forgotten that Elliana had learned about the different alarms and sirens last week, the six-year-old had been so excited to participate in the drills next month she'd broken a vase.

“It's alright. I'm really strong and I have Bellamy to watch my back. And even if I get hurt, there's hundreds of healers ready to make me all better. Besides, I doubt I'm going to be on the front lines, Bellamy and I are still too inexperienced for that. We'll probably going to be in the back, patrolling the border to make sure no sneaky people get through.” Gods did she hope that wasn't just a comforting lie, Amalea wasn't sure she was ready for the hell the front lines were no doubt going to be. 

Daniela's arms tightened around her, Elliana squeaking a complaint as she was squashed between them. Luka pulled her out, giving his wife the chance to say goodbye to her eldest daughter properly. Amalea buried her face into the crook of her neck, back bent at an awkward angle since her mother was shorter than her, but she found it hard to care as tears threatened to rise. There was safety in Daniela's arms, one that Amalea knew she'd sorely miss once she was deployed, reluctance keeping her from stepping out of the embrace.

“I know you can't promise me that you'll come back, but I want you to try your absolute best, alright? You were never supposed to be in the military in the first place, don't let it become your grave.” There was anger in her mothers voice, along with desperation and fear.

“I promise to try my best. Love you.” Daniela pulled back, wiping tears out of her eyes as she smiled. 

“I love you too. Now, I don't want you to get into trouble for being late. Elliana, say goodbye to your sister.” Elliana shook her head, Amalea's heart sinking to her feet as her tiny face turned away from her. 

“Elliana, she's not going to stay just because you don't want to say goodbye. Wars last a long time sweetheart, if you don't do it now, it might be years before you get to talk to her again.” That was enough to convince her, Elliana bursting into tears again and throwing herself at Amalea.

“I'm sorry! I just don't want you to leave me.” There was a surprising amount of strength in her tiny arms which wrapped tightly around her neck, Elliana trembling as she cried. Amalea did her best to sooth her, bouncing in place while exchanging worried looks with her parents. Luka stepped forward after a while, whispering softly to Elliana as he coaxed her into letting go, Amalea stepping back towards the door. 

“I need to go.” She couldn't think of anything else to say, goodbye's stuck on her tongue as she stared at the four people gathered in the entrance hall.

“Farewell, Mistress Amalea. May the wind be at your back and the weather in your favor.” Gerald bowed at the waist, his uniform once again pristine as he stepped back. Luka laid his hand on her shoulder, determined grin on his face.

“Give them hell.” Elliana leaned forward to kiss her on her cheek, laying her head on Luka's shoulder after doing so. “For good luck.”

Her mother was last, cupping her face and pulling her down to place another kiss on her forehead, a wisp of magic left behind and sinking into her as she stepped back.

“Come back. Kill who you have to, just come back.” Clearing her throat to keep the tears at bay, Amalea nodded, turning around and opening the heavy front door after a moments hesitation. Bright sunlight greeted her, at odds with the heavy atmosphere of the city as she made her way out onto the stone path leading up to their house. The large gate opened on it's own for her, the magic of the wards recognizing the daughter of the house.

Breathing in deeply, the smell of salt and fish met her nose, years worth of memories flashing through her mind as her feet carried her to the ley line entrance. The docks were strangely quiet even for the early morning, sailors whispering to each other as they tried to figure out what to do now that war had broken out. Some of them raised a hand when they saw her but none braze enough to call out, knowing what her uniform meant.

Another soldier arrived at the ley line at the same time she did, an older man with a small scar bisecting his chin and armor that didn't fit entirely right anymore. She got the feeling it had been a while since he'd been an active part of the military, but all soldiers were obligated to show up for the first roll-call, no matter how long it had been since they'd served. He nodded in greeting, the two silently descending the stairs and stepping into the golden energy of the ley line.

A few blurs shot past her, all of them heading in the opposite direction. She figured they were soldiers that had been at the compound when the siren sounded, probably already brought up to speed and heading home for a quick goodbye before they had to leave. Amalea had been lucky in that regard since she only had to make a single trip to the compound, saving her a lot of time

She stepped before the other soldier, noise greeting her the moment she did. There was shouting in the air, commands and confirmations blending together into a cacophony of sound, joined by the occasional dragon's roar and the loud hum of floating enchantments working overtime as things were moved to and fro inside the large walls of the compound. There was a guard waiting for her at the gates, sympathy in his eyes as he took her identification card and scanned it, a blue glow enveloping it for a moment.

“Grab your partner's gear and head for field seven. They haven't checked in yet so just wait for them there.” Nodding, she took her card and tucked it away, striding into the compound and aiming for the dorm rooms. There was chaos inside, cadets running all over the place as they packed their bags or dragged dragon equipment around, a few just crying silently in some of the calmer corners. Amalea comforted a few on her way up to her room, whispering words of encouragement and pulling a few into hugs.

The door was ajar when she arrived, Amalea stepping inside to find Bianca sitting on her bed, a half-folded shirt in one hand and tears streaming down her face as small sobs shook her body. She walked over from the doorway over to the young woman and laid her hands on the fragile-looking shoulders, a comforting smile finding it's place on her face as she gently pulled the young woman to her feet. She naturally fell forward, muffling her cries in Amalea's shoulder as her hears overwhelmed her.

“I'm so scared.” Wrapping her arms around thin shoulders, she slowly rubbed her back, keeping her voice low and soft.

“You two will be fine. You and Rory are both too young and inexperienced to be sent to the front lines, you'll probably be assigned with border patrol after we arrive at the main camp along with the rest of the cadets. We haven't finished our training yet, remember? And besides, you're in the support division. It's only if things get desperate that you'll be put out front and Preacallai is too strong for that to happen.”

“Thank you.” Bianca's sweet voice was muffled from the way her face was hidden against Amalea's chest, but the sheer amount of gratitude was hard to miss.

“There's nearly six thousand Villám in Shomnai City's standing army alone, once all the other join us, Mellion won't stand a chance.” By the gods did Amalea hope she was speaking the truth, but Mellion's king wasn't stupid. He wouldn't start a war if he didn't have some way of countering the advantage Preacallai had because of their partnership with the Villám. 

She pulled back, refusing to feel guilty as Bianca tried to cling to her. She didn't have much time left to finish packing her equipment if she still wanted to have time left over to say goodbye to her family. Amalea explained as much to Bianca, and the young woman nodded and went back to packing her bags, hands moving briskly and a hopeful edge to her movements. Amalea did the same thing, body moving automatically through the motions she'd repeated hundreds of times over the seven years she'd been in the army as she did her best not to think.

Bellamy's gear was picked up from the warehouse next to the dorms, Amalea being forced to carry it since all the hover plates were in use moving other supplies around. Heaving the heavy packs onto her back along with her own, she labored over to field six, where a harried official directed her to her spot before moving on to help the next soldier. Dropping the massive bags onto the ground, Amalea began to pull out the various pieces of armor and laying them out, of which untangling the carrier harness that went under it took five minutes all on it's own.

He'd worn the official armor only a few times and it took her a while to figure everything out, an older woman coming over when she noticed her struggle. Together they got it laid out just in time for Bellamy to arrive, Amalea giving herself two minutes to press close to him and take comfort from his large form. The woman helped with the harness as well before moving off when her own partner arrived, leaving Amalea to help Bellamy into the armor on her own. It was even more complicated than she'd thought, the different layers and interlocking parts making it difficult to remember what went where.

Luckily it only had to be put on once, the runes branded and carved into the pieces insuring that they'd only need to be taken off if there was an injury that needed to be treated. It would keep itself clean, regulate his temperature and was even capable of doing it's own maintenance if he fed magic into it every once in a while. Once the armor was on, she strapped the two saddle-bags into place, her bag slipping into its designated spot without trouble.

“Where's your bow?” She frowned up at Bellamy.

“Why would I need my bow? This is a roll-call combined with a prep, isn't it?” Bellamy winched as much as a dragon could, neck curving awkwardly.

“We're deploying today. My mother told me that we're leaving in two or three hours.”

What. Amalea stared up at Bellamy, shock freezing her in place. They were leaving today? What about assignments, supply distribution, all of those important things that needed to be done so that they didn't arrive in an empty field with no supplies? Bellamy hurried to explain before she blew, seeing her temper flare from a mile away.

“The public announcement didn't happen as soon as they news reached us of the war starting. Mellion started their attack on the border last night, word reached here a few hours later. All the management stuff has already been figured out, apparently there's already a camp set up and everything. The siren was just to get all the soldiers at home here and keep any ships from leaving the port.” That did make a lot more sense and also explained why the compound was already so active when she arrived.

“Okay. Okay, so I need my bow. I'll go get my brace as well then, back-up weapons, anything else?” Her mind was racing as she tried to think of everything she'd need for a true deployment, lips moving as she muttered under her breath.

“Someone will come through and tell us what to take when there's more people I think, so just go get your bow and stuff for now.” A quick nod was her only response as she took off, her run slowing down to a jog when she reached the busier part of the compound. Ducking into the weaponry warehouse, she was greeting with a thick crowd, which was a lot less chaotic than it looked at first glance. Instead of a crowd, people had been sorted into different lines depending on what weapon they were here to pick up, Amalea quick to take a spot in the archery line.

They moved a lot quicker than she'd expected and she was able to keep up a brisk walk all the way through the archery line and over to the secondary-weapons one, which moved a little slower since there was heavier traffic. Even then, it didn't take her longer than ten minuted to pick up her bow and it's matching brace with power jewels, along with short sword and dagger for close combat should it happen. Hopefully it wouldn't, Amalea being a true long-distance fighter at heart, but better safe than dead.

That done, she headed back to field six, which was a lot more crowded this time. About sixty complete and incomplete pairs were in various stages of preparing, some putting on armor while others were loading supplies into their saddle-bags. Bellamy was laying down as two men carefully loaded a crate into his bags, Amalea spotting the words 'SHORT SWORDS' painted on it before it was lowered into the wooden framework they'd already put in. There were several more by his claws with similar tags, management evidently taking advantage of his large size and strength to have him carry heavy supplies.

“You're back quick.” The two men looked up and gave her nods before going back to their work, leaving the two of them to it. Amalea shrugged, picked up a crate labeled 'IRON INGOTS' and handing it up to the men without needing to be prompted.

“They had a line system in place to keep things from being too chaotic, I was in and out within ten minutes. Are there more crates coming or is this it? And do we have a destination yet?” The questions weren't directed at any of them in particular, Amalea more eager for information than a conversation with Bellamy.

“Those are the last ones. It's going to be a long flight so we don't want to overburden anyone. As for destination...” The man exchanged a look with his companion, who answered for him.

“There's two camps at this point, a main camp a few kilometers off the Plains entrance and a medical camp a bit further back. These need to get to the main camp, but since you're cadets you'll probably be sent back to the medical camp as guards or end up on a patrol team.” The man that spoke first nodded, accepting the last crate that she handed up to them and carefully maneuvering it into the half-full bag.

“Preacallai's got plenty of soldiers with experience to fight on the front lines, no need to put cadets danger.” Closing and tightening the straps of the bag, they jumped down from Bellamy's back and jogged off, presumably to load up more dragons.

“Normally I'd be offended that I'm being used as a glorified pack animal, but considering the alternative is being a front-line fighter, I'm pretty happy with my current position.” Amalea hummed, walking around and sitting down in front of him. His head came down to rest next to her, the two enjoying a moment of peace as people moved hectically around them. Letting herself fall sideways, Amalea made sure her short hair fell in front of her eyes before she activated her gift, a faint gray glow coming from her eyes.

Looking at Bellamy's chest, she could see that his usual knot was looking a bit frayed at the ends and that a few sickly yellow strands had haphazardly tied themselves onto some of those ends. Her fingers twitched, the strands moving as she poked and prodded then even though she was a few meters away from his chest. Bellamy tensed for a second as one of the yellow strands came loose, a heavy breath stirring her hair.

“Is this the best place for that?” Amalea started working on the second yellow strand, shaking her head a little to get her hair back in her face.

“You're stressed, I can help.” Bellamy sighed again, neck stretching out and body shifting to hide her better. Amalea smirked, finishing with the second strand, and started working on twisting the ends of his knot back the way they should be. As she did, Bellamy visibly relaxed around her, a low ruble starting up as her fingers twirled invisible strings together.

“You might be an idiot, but you're my idiot and I still love you.” A smile spread over her face, her stress sliding out of her shoulders and her fingers continued to dance. Even after all these years, it still astounded her that he trusted her enough to let her directly manipulate his emotions like this. He was the only one she could do it to, her gift restrained to just observation when it came to other living beings, and yet it had never freaked him out.

She didn't like doing it too much, afraid she would do too much and start manipulating instead of just helping him get rid of stress and the effects it had on his emotional state. Even through he'd given her free reign years ago, Amalea had made a vow to herself that she'd only ever get rid of stress and twist the ends of his knot back together. She wasn't sure if he realized that the knot she told him she saw was the essence of his being, something she wouldn't hesitate to call his soul.

A call rang out over the field, bringing Amalea to her feet, body falling automatically into parade rest. Lieutenant Colonel Yoko commanded attention simply with her presence, her tall figure only enhanced by the fact that she was sitting astride her partner Ryuu.

“Attention cadets! War has come to Preacallai, but you are too young and inexperienced to risk on the front lines. You have been loaded up with supplies that we're going to drop off at the main camp, where you will be put into teams with more experienced pairs to form patrol teams. Your duty will be to keep any of Mellion's soldiers from slipping through the cracks and wreaking havoc on the people of Preacallai. But in order to serve in an active war, you cannot be cadets.” Lieutenant Colonel Yoko looked at the crowd as her words sunk in, drawing her broadsword and holding it out over them.

“I hereby promoted you all to Private. You are now officially members of the Preacallai army and part of the 13th Shomnai pairs division.” Oh fuck, her grandfather was going to kill her.


	2. First Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amalea makes some new friends.

Amalea and Bellamy had spent more time in the air in the following three months than they had in the past two years combined. The skies around the entrance to the Plains had quickly become infested with phoenix's who constantly rained down lighting at anything that moved, even if it was just a blade of grass swaying in the wind. This kept the grounded army from getting close enough to attack the Mellion base. The Shomnai pairs division had taken over for one of Reolchi's mixed divisions in trying to drive back the phoenix's. They'd made some progress in the beginning, but subsequently lost it when they let their guard down and ended up nearly overwhelmed by the other Mellion phoenix squads swarming them.

They couldn't stop attacking for even a moment, since newly resurrected phoenix's would come back to any territory Preacallai might have reclaimed. This all meant that the battles were literally never-ending and had to be fought in shifts so that dragons would have a chance to rest their wings and humans a chance to rest their arms. The constant relay between Preacallai squads did mean that some pairs ended up in the thick of things much sooner than anyone ever expected, including some of the pairs themselves. Like Amalea and Bellamy for example, who quickly became popular in their team thanks to Bellamy's large size and Amalea's archery skills. Thanks to large amount of time spent on the front lines, the two were promoted to Sergeant and changed over to a more experienced team.

–

The moment Bellamy touched down Amalea was out of the saddle and running right at one of the support staff carrying a self-refilling water-bottle. She snatched the bottle out of his hands and drained it dry, pulling it from her lips once it was empty and gasped for breath as she waited for the spell to kick in. Once the metal canister felt heavy in her hands, she chugged the entire thing again as Bellamy approached. The young man looked on in shock as Amalea screwed open her quiver and dumped the entire bottle into the metal cylinder,waited for a few seconds, then did it again. She let the bottle fill up one more time, drained it and then finally gave it back to the poor helper.

"Thank you for the water." The servant just nodded silently as he took back the bottle, obviously quite shocked to see a young woman chug three liters of water and walk off like it's nothing. Granted, normally she wouldn't be able to do that, but she'd just shot something like a hundred ice arrows while only having a four liter quiver. She'd ended up using the moisture in the air around her once her quiver ran dry,so there was a good chance she'd draw quite a bit of moisture from her skin in the process. This had left Amalea on the edge of dehydration, thus the three liters of water.

"You shouldn't drink that much water so quickly or you'll end up vomiting." Amalea looked around for the voice speaking to her before realizing that it came from Bellamy's other side. The Villám looked down to his left, quickly spotting the man who was judging his partner and curling his lip when the green armband tied over the white coat caught his eye. "You wouldn't be so quick to reproach her if you knew why she was drinking so much water, medic-in-training." Amalea gently drove her elbow into the center of Bellamy's chest, ignoring the yowl of pain as she gave the medic awry smile. "Don't mind him, he's just taken one-too-many lightning bolts to the face today." He shot her a cheerful smile of in return, seemingly used to having giant dragon's threaten him.

"So, how did you just drink three liters of water in the space of two minutes and not end up vomiting, if you don't mind me asking?" Very nosy question for a medic-in-training to ask, but Amalea was still feeling hyper from her recent battle and didn't mind indulging the curious man. "I ran out of water in my quiver and had to pull moisture from the air to make my arrows."Bellamy let out an annoyed grumble as he lowered his head to hang next to hers. She leaned against him and wrapped her arm around his snout, scratching at the top with her other hand. "I told you that you can just sit there while I take out those damn birds if you run out of water. This is the third time you've done this and yet you still persist on pushing yourself over your limits for no good reason." Amalea's arm tightened, her voice tense as she replied."It's not for no good reason Bellamy, there's a war going on, if you hadn't noticed yet."

Bellamy growled, hitting her over the head with his tail. "I know very well that in war you have to give it all you have, but creating nearly one hundred ice arrows within two hours, forty of those without a direct water source is just irresponsible. I'm a good flier Leah, but I don't know if I'd be able to catch you in time if you pass out in the saddle and fall." Amalea was ready to argue that she was secured to the saddle with two leather-wrapped chains while shooting, but the still-nameless medic interrupted before she could.

"Did he just say one hundred arrows in two hours? While engaged in active combat and also having to focus on staying in your saddle? Are you insane?!" The pair turned to look at him in annoyance, not happy to have a stranger interfere with their discussion. "Yes, one hundred arrows in two hours. I've been meaning to request a bigger quiver but I haven't had the time yet." Bellamy muttered darkly that their breaks had been cut in half after week one and that they barely had time to sleep and eat, but the medic seemed to be stuck on the idea that she made a hundred arrows in two hours. Amalea didn't really know what was so impressive about that, until she realized the young man probably didn't know that she used a special mix, that made the process of creating twice as easy. She explained as much and he did regain some of his color after that.

"It's still very irresponsible to create that many arrows in such a short period,you should take more time to aim if you can't hit your target the first time. Using five or six arrows just for one phoenix isn't going to do you any favors." Amalea look incredulously at the medic, not sure whether she should be more offended that he thought she was that bad of a shot or that she was stupid enough to make a hundred arrows when she only got one phoenix every five. "You should be so quick to judge little medic. This young lady here just finished taking down around ninety of those cursed birds." "Ninety-six." Came Amalea's automatic response and the older rider laughed as he walked by with his Villám partner. He'd been on her squad for her past three turns and she was just about ready to marry him despite not even knowing his name. He'd been the perfect back-up, recognizing that she was better at shooting from the saddle in chaotic situation and protecting her and Bellamy's back accordingly.

A blue tail hit her over the head again, Bellamy obviously knowing where her mind had gone as she stared at the man's back as he walked away. "Ninety-five. Ninety-five phoenix's with one-hundred arrows. That means you either missed five or didn't hit fatal shots with them."Amalea and Bellamy had actually just found out that they could take down two phoenix's at the same time if they positioned themselves correctly, so she'd actually missed about thirty of her shots, but she figured the medic wasn't really ready to hear that right now."This run went better than usual, I'm an archery specialist." The look he gave her told her that he wasn't impressed with the weak excuse, but she'd done nothing wrong by taking down so many phoenix's, so he really couldn't complain about anything.

"At the very least you should request a new quiver as this one is obviously too small. And go eat something, your hands are shaking." He strode off, apparently done scolding her and Amalea couldn't help but make a skeptical look at his back. "Do you think he knows that eating is literally required for anyone that did a shift in the skies? Because it would be weird if he didn't, since it's the medics that preform the diagnostic spells before take-off." Bellamy began laughing next to her, having heard something she couldn't. "Trust me, he knows." Amalea grinned at her partner, nudging him with her elbow. "You can't just say that and not tell me what you heard, you know I get way too curious for my own good."

The Villám nudged her back, laughter in his voice as he told her. "He ducked behind one of the tents and began banging his head against one of the support poles while berating himself for telling you to eat in such a snobby way. It seems he does respect you a lot and feels bad for treating you like an idiot." Bellamy perked up, cocking his head like he just heard something interesting. "Apparently the little baby medic likes you, if that comment about your eyes means what I think it does." Amalea's eyebrows shot up, an amused and charmed expression softening her features. "Really? Huh." That certainly drew Bellamy's attention, the dragon rolling his eyes at her once he caught sight of her expression. "Leah, we're currently at war and busier than ever. We and more importantly you, don't have the time to charm some baby medic into your bed."

"Who said I was going to charm him into my bed? I can express interest in men without wanting to sleep with them. Besides, I haven't said anything about your interest in that one paired Villám from two runs ago, you two chatted for quite some time while I was eating." Bellamy blushed, wings going from their usual dark blue to a more purple shade and he snapped his feet at her as they walked to the special food tent set up for fighters returning from their run in the sky. The main food tents were on the other side of the camp to avoid too much traffic getting in the way of the on-duty dragons and pairs. Most of the unpaired humans hung out in that part of the camp, waiting for the skies to be clear enough to actually march on the Mellion camp.

Bellamy suddenly stuck his nose into the air, sniffed once, then threw himself forward without warning, leaving Amalea in the dust for a total of three seconds before the smell reached her as well. The crowd didn't seem to understand her rush, so she jumped over them, landing briefly on Bellamy's head before kicking off using all the strength she had in her legs, jumping straight over two tents and landing in front of the food tent. She rolled once and popped up onto her feet, ignoring the stares of the dragons and humans gathered in the little clearing surrounded by tents as she strode up to the woman standing over the large cauldron filled with the stew of the gods. "One big bowl please Damnar, I'm absolutely starving." The pot didn't look big enough to serve all the dragons plus any paired humans, but it functioned the same way that the water-bottles did. Once it emptied the cauldron filled itself up again with whatever filled it before, although it did have to be at least mostly liquid.

Unlike the water-bottles though, the cauldron couldn't refill itself in ten seconds, so if it was empty, the next in line would have to wait ten to twenty minutes until the pot was full again. Amalea and Bellamy were usually quite good at waiting their turn, but only when it wasn't Damnar's turn to cook. The woman made the best stew in existence as far as they were concerned and every time it was a fight to see who would get to eat first. They always arrived later than the rest of their group since Amalea had to drink so much, so the pot was always nearly empty when they got here and today they'd been delayed more than usual thanks to the baby medic. In fact, there was only enough stew left for the large serving Amalea had requested, which she was enjoying at one of the large tables when Bellamy finally rounded the corner.

It appeared that he'd run into the wrong dragon, as his saddle didn't sit right on his back anymore, plus he also had mud on one of his horns. He sent Amalea a venomous glare as he took his spot in front of Damnar to wait for the stew to fill the cauldron again, the woman gracing him with a sunny grin on return. "You must be really hungry if you can manage a large portion instead of the normal one, wonder girl. Although it's not really surprising, considering the amount of ice arrows you crafted." Amalea looked over and saw that it was the man who'd guarded her and Bellamy's back on their latest three runs."You! I've been meaning to thank you, you've been the absolute best teammate we could have asked for." Bellamy chose that moment to sit down with them and ruin her first impression by telling the man something Amalea would have preferred to keep to herself.

"She's just about ready to marry you for that, by the way. I don't think I've ever heard her gush this much about a man since she fell in love with her bow instructor's skills." Out of all the times to blab about her thing for competent men, it just had to be in front of the guy that she'd nearly gotten used to really trusting with their backs."Bellamy, that's enough." Amalea didn't reprimand Bellamy often because despite her being older, he was actually more mature most of the time, but not only was this not teasing, it was also very rude to the man and humiliating for her. To her surprise, the man didn't look uncomfortable with Bellamy's words or her sharp remark. When Amalea gathered the courage to look him in the eyes, the only thing she could see was a knowing and sympathetic look.

"Don't worry about it, I know very well that dragons sometimes forget that humans prefer to keep some thing close to their chest for reasons they might not entirely get. My darling Emily here has blabbed about things I told her in confidence quite a few times, it's not the first time I've been told something private." Bellamy curled in on himself in shame as he realized he'd said just a bit too much and Amalea knew that he felt even worse because he hadn't said that entirely out of ignorance. He'd been annoyed that she'd beat him to the food, plus she also used him as a springboard as well, so he'd tried to get back at her by saying the things he had. "You're lucky these tables have privacy runes carved into the bottom or I might have actually became angry at you for telling everyone here personal information about me."

Bellamy curled even further in on himself, tucking his head low as her words hit home. It was rare for Amalea to get properly angry at her partner, so the warning carried plenty of weight. Annoyance didn't excuse shitty behavior, from neither of them. "Don't be too hard on him, battles like this can mess with anybodies head." It was Emily who spoke this time, her eyes fixed on Bellamy's low-hanging head. Amalea didn't appreciate the insinuation that she was taking her embarrassment and anger out on Bellamy, but considering the Blackstreak didn't know about all the facts and how their relationship worked, the woman could understand that it looked like she was overreacting.

"It's alright." A large blue tail wrapped around Amalea, the end draping over her shoulders so that the bladed tip rested millimeters from her neck. "We threaten and play with each others vital weak spots as away of reaffirming our trust in each other. I could kill her in an instant right now, the reason she's so relaxed is because she knows I wouldn't do it under any circumstances." To prove Bellamy's point, Amalea leaned forward into the blade as she lifted her bowl and the dangerous tip moved with her body, never coming any closer despite Bellamy not even looking at her once. Emily and the man, who's name she really should get around to asking, watched like hawks as Bellamy's tail moved like it was a separate entity from his body,moving as Amalea moved while the Villám himself looked them dead in the eyes with nothing but confidence in his eyes.

Eventually the man broke the strange tension at the table, laughing and shaking his head "So they weren't exaggerating when they said that pairs from Shomnai are on a whole other level when it comes to their bond." He grinned at her and held out his hand, finally introducing himself and his partner properly. "I'm Mason and this is Emily. We've been bonded for nearly twenty years now." Amalea took his hand and shook it, grinning as well now that they weren't balancing on the edge of a blade anymore. "My name is Amalea." Bellamy butted into the intentional pause she left in her sentence, introducing himself with a huff. "Bellamy. We've been bonded for eighteen years." Mason whistled, leaning back against Emily as he looked between Amalea and Bellamy. "How old were you when you bonded then? You still look pretty young, I wouldn't put you over twenty-two." He nodded at Amalea as he spoke and to be honest she couldn't blame him for his assumptions. She did look a bit young for her age, his guess was actually closer to her actual age than most.

"We bonded when Bellamy was two and I was six." She continued at his doubtful look. "Most Shomnai pairs bond that young. The ones that bond when they're older are non-Kaptagan, since they only come into contact with young Villám at a later age." Emily huffed in Mason's ear when the man just stared at Amalea and Bellamy with wonder in his eyes, nipping at his hair like a horse when that failed to knock him out of it. "It's literally common knowledge you over-dramatic moron, why are you acting so surprised." Mason pushed at Emily's snout, whining that it wasn't the same. "It's one thing to hear they bond young, it's another to see what that actually means. You can't tell me you weren't also shocked to see his tail move like that, it was like two magnets repelling each other. We've been bonded for longer than them and we wouldn't be able to do that if we tried."

Emily did the dragon version of a shrug, wings shifting upwards on her back as she replied. "It's not a competition Mason. We have our bond, they have theirs. Everyone has things they can do that others can't, that's what makes people unique and life interesting." Amalea grinned warmly at Emily, setting down her bowl after draining the last of the stew. "It was lovely finally talking to you two and I hope we continue to be on the same team in the future. I'd stick around and talk longer, but I need to get myself a new quiver. This one simply isn't cutting it for me anymore." Mason stood up and took her hand, giving her a firm handshake as he wished her luck. Emily also nodded at her and she gave Bellamy a quick hug before slipping into the ever-moving masses of the main camp.


	3. Is That Romance I Sense?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amalea makes another friend, but she can't help but feel there's something different this time.

There were parts of the camp set up so Villám could also use them, but the human armory wasn't one of them. The midday sun bore down on her as she navigated through the crowd, those that could spot her armor in time moving out of her way with nods of their head. Amalea still wasn't used to the respect and awe the human soldiers had for paired riders, like they were somehow more special than them because they were bonded with a dragon. As weird as it was, it was also really useful for getting from one place to another when she was in a hurry like she was now. Amalea had another run scheduled later today once the sun began setting, so she wanted to get this done now and get some sleep before they had to take to the skies again. She hated fighting at sunset, since the sun blinded her more easily. She didn't want to think about the amount of arrows she'd missed because she happened to look west while aiming.

Ten minutes later she finally reached the three archery tents after getting lost twice and once even ending up in the dragon armor area, which was nearly on the other side of the camp. She'd been mentally mulling over whether she should ask one of the pairs from Reolchi how they did some of the moves she'd seen them use when she finally found the tent she'd been looking for. And while there wasn't a convenient human half of a Reolchi pair already inside the tent, there was a woman in a uniform she didn't recognize. She was looking at an ice arrow quiver, although from the leather quiver she held in her hand, the woman was considering switching her arrow type instead of simply getting a different size quiver like Amalea was.

She looked up when Amalea stopped next to her, giving her a wry grin when Amalea grabbed one of the metal tubes laying in the crate marked with a four. “If you want to know anything about ice arrows, I probably know even more than him.” The young rider tilted her head in the direction of the supervisor, who nodded back after looking up from his organizing. “Don't mind if I take you up on that offer, I only know the basics.” The woman turned to face her, holding up her own quiver as she explained. “I've been using normal arrows and a longbow, but I've been running out of arrows now that the runs have gotten longer, so I either let targets go if I'm not sure if I can hit them or spend the last twenty minutes of my runs doing nothing except maybe cut down a bird that gets too close.” Amalea nodded knowingly, holding out her hand in a request to examine the woman's quiver.

“Something you have to take into consideration with ice arrows as that they aren't instantly available like normal arrows. You have to first activate and maintain the runic sequence that makes the arrows for you and, if you're not used to it, there's definitely a chance that you're going to forget and reach back only to come up empty. Another is that you're going to have to wear special gloves, which are both to give you a good grip on the arrows but also to protect your hands from the occasional sharp edges the arrows have with standard model quivers like this.” Amalea showed the woman her gloves and then held her quiver next to the one she'd grabbed, pointing out some of the modifications Amalea had made to the runic sequences and interior.

“One of the reasons I hadn't switched to a larger quiver was because I've quite heavily modified the one I already have, which took me a while to do. The runes are pretty easy to change once you know what you're doing, but to change the interior you have to take the entire thing apart and have a blacksmith help you with the modifications.” The woman nodded thoughtfully every now and then as Amalea explained both the benefits and drawbacks of changing over to an ice quiver. “Another thing that will need some mild modifications is your bow, with your string being the most important. Most normal strings aren't made to deal with the cold of the arrows, so they will wear down quickly and can even snap in the middle of battle if you're unlucky.” It became clear that despite being nearly entirely uninformed about all the things one needed to use ice arrows, the woman thought the benefits outweighed the drawbacks.

“As complicated as this all sounds, being able to have four times the amount of arrows with a quiver the same size as my old one would be more than worth it. Plus that trick you mentioned about drawing water from the air sounds good for last-case scenarios or lulling your enemy into a false sense of security by having them think you're out of arrows.” The younger rider cautioned the woman that it took a lot of practice to make the arrows from scratch without the special mix and built-in arrow mold of the quiver, to which the woman nodded seriously. “I'll just have to practice a lot before my next run them.” She said while grabbing a four liter quiver. She'd originally assumed she'd have to start with a smaller quiver, but Amalea had explained that it had more to do with age rather than your skill level, younger archers didn't have enough magical stamina to use the bigger ones.

The two women continued their discussion as they approached the worker for the official switch-over of quivers, the conversation shifting from different arrow type to the pros and cons of different arrow types, with a quick introduction thrown into the middle once they realized they hadn't gotten around to that yet. Amalea herself preferred ice arrows over any other kind since she was able to create more even if her quiver ran dry, while the woman, called Mounia, had been using mostly iron arrows up until now. “I know why most people stick to them since it does require some skill with water manipulation, but the benefits are well worth the extra effort for me.”

Their conversation lasted them the entire walk to the food tent where Bellamy still sat talking with Mason and Emily. Amalea triumphantly held up her new quiver, the Villám grumbling that it was about time as he curled around her. Mason and Mounia exchanged nods, apparently quite familiar with each other from the way Emily let the woman scratch her under her chin. “Did Bryetag run off again?” Amalea assumed that Bryetag was Mounia's bonded dragon and she hummed in interest at Mason's question. “He's still not used to the looks. People aren't used to him here. The unpaired human troops are especially obvious in their discomfort.” Amalea looked between Mounia's stiff, pained expression to Mason's understanding one, confusion coloring her voice as she spoke. “I don't get it, why would people stare at your bonded dragon? Is it because of his species or something?” She couldn't really think what else could make people look at Mounia's bonded oddly, most humans in Preacallai were taught to not look weird at dragons with obvious scars and deformations.

Mounia smiled grimly, a bitter twist to her expression. “Bryetag is a Harashi, a species which most people in this country haven't seen one outside of a painting before. They're frightened by his appearance and the whispers don't really help with anything.” Amalea winched sympathetically, suddenly understanding why she hadn't seen any signs of Mounia's partner anywhere. She'd seen a few Harashi a few years ago when a Mellowlyn diplomatic convey had visited Shomnai for the Games Festival and she had to admit that they looked twice as terrifying as Villám. It didn't bother her, she was more than used to big sharp teeth and pupil-less eyes, but to the common soldier a Harashi had to be something right out of a nightmare.

There wasn't really anything Amalea could say in response to that, the fear of men wasn't something she had control over. Mounia sighed and dropped onto the bench next the Mason, pulling a dagger out from somewhere Amalea didn't have the angle to see and began examining it. “There's really nothing to be done about it, but I still wish there was one place in the camp where he feels comfortable. Right now he spends most of his time lurking around the edge of the camp, which isn't the safest place to be right now, since we're much closer to the front-line than before. If a group of those forsaken birds somehow slip though and ambush him...” Amalea didn't know how resistant to lightning Harashi were, but since they were a water type dragon, she was guessing they might actually be weak to it. He and Mounia were still on the roster, so they must have figured out some spell or enchantment to protect him, but spells broke and enchantments worn down. He'd most likely not last long against multiple enemies.

“That's unacceptable. Mellowlyn is doing us a huge favor by bringing us supplies with no guarantee of anything in return, it would be an insult and failure of the highest order if one of the bonded dragons they sent to help was injured or killed because they didn't feel comfortable in the camp.” Amalea growled at the ground as her hands clenched with anger, mind furiously trying to come up with some sort of solution. “Where is your tent right now? Are you sharing an area with one of the pair division or do you and the rest of the Mellowlyn pairs have a little area to yourself?” Mounia slowly spun the blade in her hand, looking at it from all angles as if searching for scratches Amalea could see weren't there. “They were nice enough to give us a little area with a pond where our dragons could soak in their free time, but unfortunately that pond is located right by the normal human army tents. Most of them are driven away by the constant staring.”

Amalea grimaced, trying her best to think of some solution as she began pacing. “Can't you put up some kind of barrier? Just some large tarps strung on support poles should do the trick, who wants to stare at off-white cloth all day?” Mason was shaking his head before Amalea even got to finish, explaining that the ground around that particular area was mostly solid stone. The woman let out a snarl worthy of a dragon, hands moving as if to reach for a bow. She froze suddenly, drawing the attention of the entire group as she spun around and stalked right up to Mounia, leaning in close with fervent eyes. “You have no use for the pond right? Since none of the Harashi actually feel comfortable enough to use it. So why not ditch the pond and move your tents to one of the paired division areas? Preferably either Reolchi or Shomnai divisions, since we're the two dragon cities that get the most outside visitors. Trust me, nobody will stare after the first time.”

The older woman stared at Amalea in shock for whatever reason, while Mason lost his serious look and began smiling. “It'll have to be Shomnai's division, Reolchi's area doesn't have any room to spare. Your area is also closer to the river, so there's more moisture in the air.” He rubbed at his neck, a sheepish smile on his face as he continued. “We're also not as relaxed about rank as you guys are, I don't have the rank to make a request like this.” Amalea gave Mason a weird look, not really understanding how he wouldn't be able to ask for an audience with his colonel or brigadier general, but then shrugged and whistled for Bellamy to follow her as she held her hand out to Mounia. “Shall we?” She paused, eyes narrowing as she looked Mounia in the eye. “You do want to do this right? Or did you become attached to your little pond?” The woman closed her eyes and let out a bark of laughter before opening them again and grabbing Amalea's hand with her own.

“Let's go then, you stubborn woman.” A wicked glint sparked in her eye and Amalea yelped as Mounia suddenly pulled her close and wrapped her free arm around her waist. “You should watch out though, stubbornness and loyalty are considered very attractive traits in Mellowlyn. You might just end up with a suitor or two if you show this kind of behavior in front of my team.” The wicked curl of her lips told Amalea that Mounia herself might end up being one of those suitors and she turned bright red as the hand on her waist suddenly felt hot. “I-um, thanks. I'll keep it in mind.” It had usually been Amalea that did the charming, not the other way around and the young woman found that she didn't really mind the change.

A dark blue talon gently inserted itself between Mounia's arm and Amalea's waist, and she looked up as Bellamy towered over her. “I think that's about enough of that. Didn't you have something you should be doing? We have to get ready for our shift soon Leah, and you still need to fill up you quiver.” Mason chose that moment to stand up and walk over, grinning from ear to ear. “Since we're both assigned to this shift, I can just fill up you quiver for you so you have more time to take care of things.” Amalea smiled appreciatively at Mason as she slid her quiver off her back and handed it over to him, grabbing Mounia by the arm and dragging her off. Bellamy gave Mason a dirty look, knocked his cup of ale off the table with his tail as he turned around, then followed his partner into the mixed crowd of dragons and humans.


	4. Falling From Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amalea does her best to help Mounia with a problem, and an unexpected attack pushes Amalea to her limits

If this had been any other kind of request Amalea would have just walked right up the colonel's tent and announce her presence before walking right in, but she knew that she would be stepping on a lot of toes just be suggesting that the Mellowlyn squad move into the Shomnai pairs area. She didn't want to risk anybody being able to undermine her request by saying she hadn't followed protocol, so instead of heading for the big command tent, she headed to the slightly smaller one next to it. Amalea made sure to let go of Mounia before stepping into the tent, knowing that only proper behavior would get her what she wanted. Bellamy had once said that it was nearly scary just how well she knew how to manipulate those above her so they did what she wanted to, to which Amalea had responded with a smile and a comment about how they made it too easy for her.

She bowed her head at the woman sitting at the large field desk working through the endless paperwork necessary even during war, seeing Mounia do the same out of the corner of her eye. Straightening, Amalea looked the unimpressed woman in the eyes. “Corporal Amalea requesting to speak to Colonel Vitya.” She didn't mention Mounia, refusing to speak even when the intimidating woman stared her down with one eyebrow raised reprovingly. “The Colonel is currently unoccupied. You have ten minutes.” Amalea bowed her head again before turning on her heel and marching out of the tent, Mounia following after her. Bellamy was waiting for them outside, his wings relaxing from their tensed position at her nod. “Ten minutes.” She didn't say anything else, knowing she couldn't afford to lose much time since she was taking the formal route with her request. “Knock 'em dead.” A fierce grin flashed over her face at the encouragement, but she quickly schooled her face before walking into the tent.

Colonel Vitya was an intimidating man. Not because he was tall or very muscled, Amalea was taller than him by more than ten centimeters. It was his eyes that made most people drop their eyes to the ground, a little voice in the back of their heads screaming at them to run, to hide and hope he didn't notice them. Amalea had never had that problem though, mostly because the eyes looking at her were her own. She could never be afraid of a family member and her grandfather was no exception. Mounia gasped quietly behind her and Amalea could feel the tension radiate off her. “Speak, Corporal.” The Colonel's voice cracked over her like a whip, causing her to straighten her spine just that little more. Right now they weren't family, they were subordinate and superior officer. Amalea looked straight ahead, one hand holding her other arms wrist behind her back as she began her report.

“I ran into Mellowlyn Rider Mounia at the armory at midday today and after talking about various subjects, she mentioned that her partner spends most of his time at the edge of the camp. When I asked why, she responded that as a Harashi, they get a lot of scared looks and whispers from the common soldiers. The designated Mellowlyn camp is located next to the ground soldier camp and most of the Mellowlyn dragons have been chased out of said camp because of aforementioned stares and whispers. They have not had the chance to use the pond their camp is located next to for it's intended use and are putting themselves in danger to get away from the negative attention.” And now for the actual request. Amalea shifted her feet just a millimeter further apart, adding a slight defiant edge to her voice as she continued.

“I am here to request the Mellowlyn camp be moved from it's current location to the remaining space we have here at the Shomnai paired division camp on behalf of Mellowlyn Rider Mounia and her squad. They have not used the pond set aside for them because of their discomfort, which renders the camps special location useless. The Shomnai paired camp is located close to the river making the air very humid and I am confident that they will quickly be accepted here.” Even after finishing, Amalea didn't move a muscle, knowing that this had turned into a waiting game. The Colonel was testing her resolve and if she gave in and tried to use their family connection to pursuance him, he'd turn her down. He'd first have to bring the request to the generals and get it approved before the Mellowlyn camp could be moved, since they were still considered diplomats and favoritism was a big concern. He wanted to see if it was worth the trouble, but Amalea refused to give up.

She didn't make friends quickly as most people ended up feeling overwhelmed by her personality, but Mounia hadn't just kept up with her, she'd reversed the roles. The older woman didn't know it yet, but she'd gained a friend in Amalea with her actions and Amalea would do anything for her friends. The Colonel had been slowly walking in circles around her for the past few minutes and it seemed like he'd made his decision as he stopped in front of her. “I accept you request. Now get out of here, the general is ten second away from walking into this tent and I can't have him see that you were the one to bring me this request.” Amalea didn't hesitate, yanking Mounia off her feet as she threw herself at the secret back entrance of the tent. She rolled, ending up on one knee with the older woman cradled in her arms, their faces centimeters apart as they waited with baited breath if the general had noticed them.

They both relaxed when no raised voices came from the tent and that's when Amalea realized just how close Mounia's face was to hers when her breath fanned over her lips. Her silver eyes got caught in moss green ones, the two woman looking at each other with flushed cheeks for a couple of seconds before a loud bang somewhere in the camp knocked them out of it. Amalea jerked her head up, getting to her feet and gently setting Mounia down on hers before stepping back. Bellamy peeked his head around the edge of the tent, hissing at Amalea that they had to get a move on. She cursed under her breath after glancing up at the sky, only just then noticing that the sun was dangerously low in the sky. Amalea did not want to show up late to her shift, not after what happened the first and last time she did.

Mounia wished them luck as the pair ran for the take-off area at the western edge of the camp where Mason was waiting for them. He tossed Amalea her quiver and she slotted it into place in it's harness before vaulting onto Bellamy's back right before their squads sergeant walked into the clearing. He hadn't been able to join them in their midday shift after getting one of his horns torn off by a phoenix, so Amalea was happy to have him back. His helmet was covering the replacement she knew he had to have gotten and she cursed under her breath as she realized she'd forgotten to activate Bellamy's helmet in her rush. The same thought occurred to him in that moment and he quickly twisted his neck so Amalea could reach the metal bands around his horns. She fed a piece of her magic into the runes, which glowed briefly before the metal expanded to wrap around Bellamy's head.

He straightened just in time for Sergeant Fragnial to reach them for inspection and they both received unimpressed glares for their unpreparedness. “You noticed it yourself and fixed it in time, but this is a serious matter you two. Having your equipment in order can mean the difference between life and death and nobody wants you see you to go home in caskets.” Amalea swallowed, looking down with guilt curling in her stomach. She'd gotten dismissive of Mellion's forces since she'd been doing so well, but arrogance could get them killed just as quickly as anything else. She gave a small nod at Fragnial's rebuttal, hands moving to her back to check her equipment. The dragon turned his back to them and swept his gaze over the rest of the squad, voice hard as he spoke. “I doubt the corporal's were the only ones with their equipment out of order, so I want you all to check your weapons and your armor. We have ten minutes before we're supposed to be in the air, so get moving! Just remember, as a squad we've gotten lucky. We get high kill counts and so far the worst injury has been my own. Others haven't been as fortunate as we have.”

Amalea's blood chilled in her veins at Fragnial's next words. “A squad of unpaired dragons went out yesterday and only one of them made it back alive. He lost one wing in the fight and the other one had to be amputated. He'll never fly again.” They got their early warning signal as that grim message sunk in, the six riders activated their own helmets while Fragnial returned to his position at the front of the group. “Luck runs out and when it does it's your skills and armor that will save you. The least you can do is make sure those two things are at their best.” The seconds signal sounded, prompting the sergeant to do a communication rune check. He called on each member, both human and dragon, waiting until each of them gave their affirmative answer before moving on. Finally the third signal came and as one the dragons of Squad 17 spread their wings and launched themselves into the sky.

–

Something wasn't right.

Amalea cursed as the phoenix she and Bellamy were fighting dodged her arrow with millimeters to spare and nearly knocked her out of her saddle. It had done that twice before in the past five minutes and this time Bellamy knew the move was coming, bringing his tail up with lightning quickness to stab the bird through the chest. One of the problems was that Amalea had already shot down that particular bird not too long ago with an arrow to the neck. She knew it was the same one because the tail feather pattern was identical. Today wasn't even the first time she'd faced this phoenix, it had been just as persistent two weeks ago. This was the third time total they'd killed this particular phoenix in two weeks and the second time today. They were coming back quicker than ever before and Amalea was sure the reason behind their accelerated regeneration couldn't be anything good. “You saw that too, right?” Bellamy twisted and dove for the ground as razor-sharp claws just barely glancing off her shoulder-plates, pulling up before he dropped low enough to make them a target and snapping his jaws around the neck of a passing phoenix. He finally responded after spitting the feathers out of his maw.

“What, that the one I just killed with my tail was the same one you shot out of the sky not ten minutes ago? Yeah, I saw that. The one that nearly got your shoulder got dropped by Mason about twenty minutes ago, it aimed at you after missing him.” So it wasn't just the one phoenix, they were all resurrecting much quicker than should be possible. This wasn't something she could ignore. Amalea activated the direct communication rune with Sergeant Fragnial, giving her report after getting the go-ahead. “Sir, there's something not right with the phoenix's. Bellamy just took out a bird I shot down ten minutes prior and another phoenix that Mason killed twenty minutes ago just tried to take me out. They're resurrecting in minutes instead of days.” She paused, debating whether she should share her sudden thought. “Sir, I think the Mellion is planning some-”

Neither of them saw or heard the man coming and between one second and the next Amalea was knocked out of her saddle. The twin chains connecting her belt to the front snapped, not capable of withstanding such force and Amalea felt some of her fingers dislocate as her instinctive grip on her saddle was broken. Bellamy tried to dive after her with a roar, but was forced to pull up when three phoenix's rose up to meet him with extended claws. Amalea's training kicked in not two seconds after she left the saddle, flipping them so the man was under her. He swung at her face with a dagger and she caught his wrist with her left hand, using her other hand and her legs to keep him immobilized as the ground rushed up to meet them. The Mellion soldier tried to get loose as he realized that no phoenix's were diving down to catch them, a desperate hatred in his eyes as he snarled at her. Amalea ignored him and simply prepared for her jump. If she timed it right, she would be able to stop most of her momentum by jumping off the man as hard as she could, after which she would hopefully be able to break the rest of her fall by rolling.

It very nearly worked out perfectly as well, except the man had gotten his hand loose at the last moment and had swung his blade at her face, throwing her slightly off-balance and messing up her jump. She was still able to push off sideways and roll, her armor taking most of the damage as she hit the ground with her left-shoulder first, the rest of her body following in a near-perfect roll. She still dislocated her arm and once she stopped she could feel that there was something off with her lower back from where she'd rolled over a rock, but for a fall that would have killed an ordinary person Amalea was feeling pretty lucky. She would have actually been in much worse shape if she'd been alone in the air instead of having someone to use as a springboard.

She didn't bother trying to push herself into a sitting position, knowing that she needed to pop her shoulder back into place first. Ideally she'd have someone else help her by slowly pull on her arm to let it pop back into place naturally, but the only other human currently on the ground with her was a Mellion soldier with a very much broken body who wasn't going to be of much use to anyone. “Gods damn it, Mellion can go burn for all I care.” Amalea did her best to relax the muscles around her left shoulder as she reached over her body with her right arm and grabbed her bicep. Two seconds all thoughts of cursing Mellion left her mind as pain took it's place, the left side of her upper body screaming in pain as she slowly pulled her arm away from her body until the bones slotted back into place.

Instantly Amalea let her right arm flop to the side as she did her best to breathe through the aftershocks of pain, the occasional curse slipping out when the pain spiked in time with her breathing. She was in the middle of hoarsely snarling at the dead Mellion soldier that she hoped the lords of the dead lands used his spine to build their thrones, when the Sergeants voice suddenly came over the still-open connection. “Corporal, shut up and listen.” Amalea chocked back the rest of the curse and pushed herself into a sitting position, the sounds of battle making themselves known as her head cleared. “Sir?” Fragnial's voice was grim as he updated her on the situation in two sentences. “Mellion somehow doubled the number of phoenix's, who now also have riders. We need back-up, but can't afford to lose a single dragon right now, so you need to get within two kilometers of the main camp and use the contact runes to call for help.”

He closed the connection after giving Amalea her order and the woman pushed herself the rest of the way to her feet. She took two seconds to orientate herself before she started sprinting in the direction of the main camp. They'd been taught in the academy how to push their bodies beyond it's natural limits with magic and her armor also had enchantments that let her body react faster than should be possible. All this meant that she practically flew across the landscape, body and magic working together to move as fast as she was physically and magically capable of. The result was that within fifteen minutes she reached a river she knew lay one-and-a-half kilometers away from the camp. 

She slowed down then, knowing that she couldn't run at her top speed while also use the communication runes. First she set of the emergency signal that would reach every other helmet connected to the main comm rune, after which she connected herself to her grandfather's personal comm rune. She waited only long enough for her grandfather to pick up his helmet before yelling at him. “Mellion has doubled it's numbers, the main forces are being overwhelmed! Send back-up now, forget protocol!”

Already she could see dragons rising from the camp, first just a few, then in large groups as their helmets were automatically activated from the control center. Soon the sky was filled with dragons, each of them doing their best to fly as fast as possible, while still not running into anybody else. Amalea took a second to thank whomever came up with universal flying-formations as the mass began moving at top speed west to aid the rest of the aerial forces. Her mission done, Amalea began flagging as the adrenaline wore off. She'd pushed her body to and over it's limits by sprinting as fast as she had for so long and at this point her armor was doing most of the work as her muscles lost strength at an alarming rate. Her magic was also running low, having been used not just to enhance her body but also to keep herself from passing out from the effort. After stumbling forward a few more steps, she fell to her knees.

Breath coming in ragged pants, Amalea didn't even have the energy to catch herself as she tipped forwards. A weak groan worked it's way out of her body as her weight forced her back to straighten, dragging her face over the ground until she lay flat. Her armor felt like it doubled in weight when her magic became too weak to keep powering it, her shoulder throbbed in time with her racing heartbeat and her body felt strangely numb. Faintly Amalea could hear a voice in her ear, first demanding her location and when she failed to respond, if she was okay. The only thing the woman could do at this point was breathe and even that wasn't very easy with the way her face was pressed into the dirt.

The last thought Amalea had before she lost consciousness was that she hoped Bellamy would be there when she woke up.


	5. Explosive Awakenings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amalea wakes up to the consequences of her actions

Consciousness didn't come easily to Amalea. She had to be coaxed into wakefulness by tendrils of warmth gently tugging at her mind and even then she didn't wake up for longer than a few seconds. It did keep her from falling as deeply asleep as before and she became aware of an insistent presence in the back of her mind that felt strangely familiar. Amalea wasn't afraid of it, instinctively knowing that it had always been there, she just hadn't noticed it before.

It felt like restrained lightning, bringing her a sense of comfort. She floated around her mind like a ghost, spending most of her time curled up next to the familiar presence. She knew she could leave now and float up to the light she could see in the distance, but the last thing she remembered was pain, exhaustion and fear, the cause of which was a mystery to her. No, she'd much rather stay right here next to the presence, it was much nicer that way.

Eventually though, the presence became unsettled, buzzing in agitation and doing it's best to drive her to the light. Amalea still didn't want to leave her cocoon of darkness yet, but the presence didn't give her much of a choice as it chased her forwards while sparking threateningly. “...” It sounded more like the idea of a sound rather than an actual sound, coming from the light. She floated closer, innocent curiosity drawing her in. The sound came again, clearer this time, and Amalea could tell that it was a voice. She couldn't hear what it was saying, though there was a definite edge of pleading and desperation in the words. 

“Leah...!” She cocked her head at her name as the presence behind her reacted to the voice, going from agitated buzzing to a more relaxed crackle. Amalea glanced back at the welcoming darkness longingly once, knowing that if she buried herself deep enough the presence and voice would stop bothering her, but eventually she turned forward once more and glided into the light.

The presence followed her as she did, getting more and more excited as the world around her changed from black to a soft white. The voice became clearer and was even joined by others, each of them taking turns talking. It became clear to her that they weren't directed at her but were instead communicating with each other and annoyance welled up inside her. She'd left the warm darkness for the voice and now it wasn't even talking to her!

Amalea woke slowly, first cataloging the things she felt before trying to move or open her eyes. It became obvious to her that her armor had been removed and that she was laying on a bed, the slightly lumpy mattress underneath her feeling exactly like those used in the medical tents. She was mostly tucked under a thick blanket with only her arms, shoulders and head exposed.

Amalea made a mental note to steal the pillow her head was currently resting on because it was three times more comfortable than the one she had, although she could do without the restricting blanket. Another sensation made itself noticeable as she awoke fully was her dry mouth, but even when she tried to lift an arm to search for a mug of some sort, her limbs refused to move. A tiny sound came from the back of her throat in protest of her own helplessness, apparently loud enough to draw the attention of talking people, who instantly fell silent.

“Amalea? Are you finally awake?” The woman frowned, not interested in answering questions with her throat this dry and made the sound again with a more demanding tone to it. “Colonel Vitya, the Captain is probably very thirsty right now, she hasn't had the chance to drink in a while.” Amalea didn't recognize the voice or understand why it was referring to her as Captain, but it's owner was slipping thin chips of ice into her mouth every few seconds so she didn't really care. The small amounts of water only made her thirstier and another, more demanding sound left her as her frown deepened.

“I'll give you actual water only if you open your eyes Captain, it's not much harder than waking up.” Considering waking up had taken her a very long time and involved being herded into a strange light by lightning, that didn't exactly reassure Amalea, but she did her best to force her eyelids apart anyway, the temptation of actual water too much to resist.

They stuck together like tree-sap had been used to glue them together, the urge to scratch at her eyes rising like a tidal wave. A yowl tore out of her dry throat and she was nearly able to gather enough energy to raise her hand to rub at her eyes. “Ah, I'm sorry Captain. Let me help.” She heard the sound of something being dipped in water close to her before gentle hands wiped at her eyes with a soft cloth to clean away all the grit that had built up while she'd been asleep. Amalea could finally pry her eyes open and was greeted with a faintly familiar face. She squinted suspiciously at his face, wondering where she'd seen him before, when the other people standing around her bed drew her attention.

Her grandfather was standing at the edge of her bed along with Shomnai general, but right now Amalea wasn't interested in either of them, all her attention instead on the metal cup of water the medic was carrying as he came back from the table on the other side of the tent. “Don't try to sit up on your own just yet Captain, your muscles are still recovering from the strain you put them under.”

He set the cup down at the small table next to her bed and helped her sit up in the bed, stacking the pillows in such a way that they supported her back properly. She barely had the energy to hold her own head up, something that the man noticed and fixed with more pillows and some slight adjustments to her position. Done getting her upright, he grabbed the cup and brought it to her lips, slowly tilting it forward after she opened her mouth.

He didn't let her drink very fast or very much, only refilling the cup once before putting it on the little table. “Now that you've had something to drink, I do believe that the colonel and the general have something to say to you.” Bowing to the two men, the medic left the tent, which Amalea only just then noticed was one of the tents reserved for high-ranking individuals. She brought her gaze back to her grandfather, when the man cleared his throat and stepped forward to stand at the edge of her bed.

“First of, I would like to thank you not only on behalf of every dragon and bonded human in this camp, but also on behalf of Preacallai as a whole for your actions during Mellion's counterattack. You alerted the main camp faster than anyone could have ever expected, saving hundreds of lived with your actions. The deployed forces were in the process of retreating, when the first wave of reinforcements arrived, and had they come any later they themselves wouldn't have been enough either.”

Amalea paled rapidly at her grandfather's words, the implications making her light-headed. “It was only when the entirety of the aerial forces fought together that they were able to beat Mellion all the way back to their own camp, which has now been moved several kilometers back into the Plains after the ground forces put pressure on them.” What? She stared at her grandfather in confusion, knowing that it would take at least two weeks to both prepare the ground forces and march all the way to the Mellion camp. Wait. She narrowed her eyes, eyes sweeping around the tent and noticing the signs of long-term use.

“How long have I been unconscious?” Her grandfather sighed, clasping his hands behind his back. “You did a lot of damage not just to you body, but also your magical pathways. The medics spent six hours fixing all they could, but your body still needed a lot of rest. They kept you under for a week after the operation, but even then you still didn't wake up. In total, you've been unconscious for four weeks.”

The woman stared at her grandfather in shock. People simply did not stay unconscious that long after injuries anymore these days, not after all the advancements made in healing in the past hundred years. For her to be under for so long, she must have been on the brinks of death. “Just how much damage did I do?”

“The junior medic that just left will be able to tell you in more detail, but apparently you'd already sustained a few injuries from being knocked out of your saddle that you aggravated by running as fast as you did. Your muscles took a lot of damage, you had a severe concussion and your left shoulder was in shambles when they got to you. Even with all they've managed to fix, you're going to need to do some physical therapy to get everything back in order.”

She wasn't listening anymore though, her mind having stalled when he mentioned being knocked out of her saddle. “Bellamy!” Ignoring the screaming of her body, the woman tried to force herself out of the bed to find her bonded. She'd been out for a month, he should have been pacing outside worried out of his mind, but there wasn't the slightest sound to be heard from outside aside from the general sounds of the camp. Vitya's eyes widened as she threw back the restricting blanket and rushed forward to push her back into the bed. She grabbed his wrists, ignoring the pained look he gave her at her tight group, screaming in his face.“Where is he?!” Oh gods, he'd been right in the thick of things. He seen her fall to the ground, but she wasn't sure if he'd seen her land, or if Sergeant Fragnial had thought to tell him that she'd survived the fall.

Her breathing sped up until she was hyperventilating, one horrible image after another flashing through her mind, each of them showing Bellamy dead or dying in battle while blinded by grief and rage. She didn't even notice that she'd started screaming, panic completely taking over her mind. Her heartbeat was pounding in her eyes, blocking out the sound of first her grandfather and then the medics trying to calm her down. She was seconds away from lashing out, when she heard a devastatingly familiar roar. 

“What are you doing to my rider?!” Everybody in the tent froze except for Amalea, who slipped out of the medics slackened grips and stumbled out of the tent, his large head appearing under her just in time to catch her as her legs gave out. “I thought you were dead. I woke up and-” Bellamy huffed, his warm breath an indescribably reassuring against her stomach. “I'm sorry, there was an issue I had to take care of in your stead. I wouldn't have gone if I'd known you were going to wake up today.”

Amalea only spared a second of thought to wonder what kind of issue was important enough to make Bellamy leave her side while she was unconscious, but she was too happy at knowing that he was still alive to care for long. “Just promise me that you won't leave me again, I don't think my heart can take the stress of waking up alone.” Her grandfather and the general didn't count and neither did the medic. Bellamy was the only one that counted, the only one that could set her heart at ease.

“I'm sorry to interrupt your reunion, but Captain Amalea is still recovering from her injuries. The best way she can do that is in a bed, so if you could please put her down.” There was a definite sign of hesitance in the medic's voice, understandable given the situation. It wasn't a smart move to get between a bonded pair after a stressful situation, Amalea knew that he had a good point. Already her muscles were starting to burn and the only thing she was doing was hanging over Bellamy's nose like a sack of potatoes.

Almost like he could feel her pain, Bellamy slowly lowered her into the junior medic's waiting arms. He brought her back inside the tent and laid her down on the bed, carefully arranging the pillows and blanket once more. Once he was sure she was as comfortable as she was going to get, he turned to Vitya and the general. “Please don't agitate Captain Amalea any more, she needs rest more than you need ill-worded speeches.” Amalea snorted and began laughing as the medic fled the tent before the two high-ranked officials could come over their shock.

“I like him, he's got guts.” A huff came from the entrance of the tent where Bellamy had stuck his head inside. “Of course you like him, you like anyone that mouths off important people.” She grinned at him, content to ignore her grandfather in retaliation for his stupid speech. “They're only as important as we make them Bellamy.” Not the smartest thing to say in front of a general, but the fuzziness of her head made it hard for Amalea to care.

She became aware that someone was talking to her and after much blinking, the woman was able to focus her attention on the general. “- rank of Captain, skipping Lieutenant. You will be given two months to physically recover and pick the members of your squad before you'll be put back on active duty. I heard that a Lieutenant Mason has already declared that he and his bonded dragon wish to be a part of your future squad, but the decision is up to you.” 

His speech apparently done, the general left the tent. Her grandfather stayed relaxing once the other man was out of earshot. “I'm very proud of you Amalea, but I fear that if you don't make it back from this war your mother will kill me. I know it was unavoidable this time, but please try to be a bit more careful the next time you're out there.” The woman just nodded vaguely at the graying man, barely able to keep her eyes open. Her head lolled to the side, exhaustion dragging at her as the stress of the last ten minutes hit her. “I'll leave you to your rest.” A quiet noise slipped from her mouth as she fell asleep, the last thing she felt being Bellamy's breath over her face as he laid his head next to her bed.


	6. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amalea slowly gets back on her feet, and goes out to scout for pairs to form the team she is supposed to put together in two months

Amalea spent most of the next week asleep and when she wasn't sleeping she was doing her physical therapy under the watchful eye of the junior medic. She'd finally figured out where she'd seen him before when he came in after her little nap to explain the extent of the damages she'd done to her body and the things she'd have to do to get back into shape. He was the baby medic that had commented on her water intake when she'd come back from her first run on the 23rd before things had gone to hell. The rundown of her list of injuries took longer than she thought it would and by the end of it she couldn't help but wonder how the hells she'd survived all of that.

“You overworked most of the muscles in your body and were then incapable of stretching them, leaving them tense and knotted to the extreme. You also have minor fissures in all of the muscles of your legs along with more severe tearing in your calves. Your head injury left you with a minor concussion which was aggravated by the strain you put your body under later.” He looked down at the chart showing all her injuries and Amalea couldn't help but notice that there were a lot more colors than usual on the female figure.

“The same happened with the dislocated shoulder you popped back into place, both the bones themselves and the muscles surrounding it suffered damage from your run. On top of that you'd suffered minor damage to your spine from what we think was your fall and you bruised your nose when you fell forwards after setting off the emergency signal. That's about it for the physical injuries aside from some general bruising and a few scrapes here and there from both your battle and the fall.”

He flipped the top page to reveal another chart, this one showing her magical pathways. And again, a lot more colors than she was used to. Nearly the entire thing was covered in the dark red that meant she'd strained a particular pathway, with her legs and the area around her lungs looking more like black than the vibrant red they were supposed to be.

“Magically you are somehow ever worse off. You won't be able to use magic without doing permanent damage for at least another three weeks, and even then only in small amounts. Most of your major pathways were nearly completely burned out, we had to call in a specialist from the medic camp as the medics here simply couldn't fix all of it. As for the smaller pathways, they sustained less damage but they're still pretty torn up.”

That's when he hesitated, one finger hovering over the nearly black color of her legs on the chart. A wary look tinged with horror twisted his face as he forged ahead, his eyes refused to meet hers as he spoke.

“The only reason the magical pathways in your legs weren't completely burned out was because you channeled half your magic into your armor, and even then it was close. It took two hours and six senior medics along with the specialist to fix them enough that they didn't collapse in on themselves, but even then you've lost nearly 30% of the smaller pathways that couldn't be saved.”

He sighed, running one hand through his hair while staring at the parchment. “That you haven't come out of this paralyzed from the waist down with a dead magical system is nothing short of a miracle and dumb luck.” Having heard nearly the full explanation of all the damages, Amalea couldn't help but agree.

“Your lungs are the same story as your legs. Severe damage to both the tissue and the magical pathways, although you barely lost any of the smaller pathways since the medics started working on your lungs before your legs. As for your recovery, you have a lot of physical therapy in your future. You seemed pretty out of it from what your bonded told me so I don't know if you remember if the general gave you two months before he expects you to get back to active duty.” Looking dubiously at the clipboard in the medic's hands, Amalea wondered how she was supposed to not only get back into fighting shape but also find at least nine dragons to make up her new squad in two months.

“Now, it's time to talk about the physical therapy. You'll have to start slow, mostly just various exercises done while in bed, but considering you managed to actually get up and walk a few steps yesterday despite only just waking up, I don't anticipate that it will take more than a week to get you out of that bed, even if for only short amounts of time.”

Amalea didn't think that was too bad of a pronouncement, considering she'd probably been a three minutes and some bad luck away from being paralyzed from the waist down.

“The therapy will be accompanied by periodic magical infusions to help both your body and your magical pathways recover faster than they would normally. I'll be guiding you through some of those exercises right now, and I expect you to keep doing these even after you've received your medical discharge, because they really do help keep your body in proper condition.”

Amalea really liked this junior medic, and not just because he was cute. The man remained professional the entire time he was tending to her, noting every flinch and stilted movement and adjusted his own actions accordingly if needed. He did his best to make sure she wasn't in any pain while also ensuring they actually had the effects they needed to have.

–

It was Bellamy that finally got around to asking the medic his name while the man was in the middle of helping Amalea with what was to her a painful leg stretch. He responded distractedly, eyes glowing as he looked at both the way her muscles flexed and how her magical pathways reacted to the movement.

“It's Damien.”

He tsked as one of her calf muscles locked, gently lowering her leg without letting her bend her knee before using his now-glowing hands to slowly massage the muscle back into it's previous relaxed state. “Don't do this particular exercise without me for the time being.”

This was the forth exercise that had ended up on that list, and they weren't even done with her legs.

“Are you sure I'm really going to get out of this bed in a week? because it's starting to seem like it'll be months before I get anywhere.” Damien just hummed as he started up the stretch again, this time keeping one hand on her calf to make sure it didn't lock up again.

“I've heard those kind of words from plenty of other patients and they all ended up surprising themselves with how quickly they regained their strength. You're not that special in this regard Captain, you'll be fine.” His words were oddly reassuring in their dismissiveness and Amalea could finally relax properly and let the man bend and turn her leg without it locking up every few seconds.

She'd been worrying in the back of her head that her extensive injuries would prevent her from recovering within the time limit she'd been given. But it had been that exact worry that had been holding her back and without it the whole process became much easier.

Bellamy made sure to keep her updated on how the war was doing and Mason came by when he could with Emily to cheer her up and give her a more detailed update about the change in Mellion's tactics now that Preacallai had gained a foot-hold in the Plains. Mellion apparently already had two camps, but now the one they knew about had split into two to prevent the ground forces from flanking them like Preacallai had managed with their first good push after the phoenix's had been beaten back.

Mounia came by more frequently than Mason, something only possible because she was deployed less often despite being nearly entirely integrated into the Shomnai pairs division. Amalea still hadn't met her bonded dragon as he still didn't feel comfortable wandering far from their new camp, but Mounia assured her that once the Harashi settled down she'd bring him by. Amalea had thought about asking the Mellowlyn woman to become a member of her squad, but had been doubtful about whether it would be allowed, so in the end it was Mounia herself that has asked if she could join.

That's when Amalea and Bellamy learned that the Mellowlyn ten dragon squad was being fully integrated into the Preacallai aerial forces after an agreement had been made between the Preacallai king and the Mellowlyn queen. Another two squads had flown in from the swamp country, again all pairs with not a single unbound dragon amongst the lot.

Mounia explained that Mellowlyn didn't really have unbound dragons in their army the way Preacallai had since Harashi were much more aggressive than Villám by nature, which Amalea still had difficulty comprehending despite the whole situation being explained to her by Mounia more than once. She was simply incapable of imagining a place where humans weren't outnumbered by dragons three-to-one, maybe because she'd spent her entire life surrounded by the massive beings.

This all meant that when Amalea was finally able to walk further than ten meters away from her tent after two weeks of physical therapy, she already had two of the none slots filled. There was also a system in place to assist newly promoted Captains to put together their squads, one that Amalea was eternally grateful for, as it helped her figure out where to begin looking.

She'd been given around a hundred files of compatible dragons and pairs to look over, of which she'd picked around thirty to choose her last seven squad-members from. On paper they seemed pretty suited to the kind of squad Amalea had in mind, so all that was left was to see how they were like in person.

Specialist squads were currently in high-demand but low in numbers, a problem that Amalea intended to fix at least a little. There weren't many of them was because it was incredibly difficult to get several different kinds of specialists to work together reliably, but the few captains that managed had some of the most efficient and powerful squads under their command.

Amalea knew that she was asking a lot from herself to try and put together a specialist squad for her very first time as a leader not to mention that she wasn't at her best right now. She was determined to do it though, especially because she already had two different specialists, even if one of them was only one unofficially.

Mason was a battle-mage, a fact that had left Amalea speechless when she'd found out. Battle-mages were the most dangerous human fighters in the world and one of the few capable of taking on certain dragon species alone and come out on top. As a Blackstreak Emily was a natural stealth and speed specialist, while Mounia was an unofficial poison expert. From what little the woman had told her, her bonded Bryetag was immune to most poisons and could use water elemental spells with such skill it was like he could control water with nothing but his mind, so Amalea was more than happy to call him a water specialist.

Those four skill-sets could already be used to complete a variety of missions and that was before you added her and Bellamy's. Her archery skills were several levels above most others and her endurance was nothing to scoff at, while Bellamy was brilliant at physical brawling while in the air despite his large size. His lightning attacks were also quite powerful although Amalea wouldn't call him a specialist.

What she wanted for the rest of her squad was at least half-decent medic, a deadly distraction, a human stealth specialist for when Emily couldn't do it because of her species, a rune specialist and some very deadly fighters so they wouldn't get overwhelmed in a head-on fight. There had only been one pair with a human stealth specialist so Amalea and Bellamy headed for them first. Shakila was from Shomnai city just like Amalea and Bellamy, but she hadn't had the chance to bond with Tylja until they were both older since the dragon was from a different city.

Her file said she was the best stealth specialist in her age category, although her aerial combat skills were apparently not entirely up to par since she'd bonded so late. As for Tylja, the dragon didn't really have anything special noted down in his file, but if he was bonded with a stealth specialist, there had to be something about him that made the two of them click.

She also had another reason for approaching Shakila and Tylja first, which was that the pair were noted for their laid-back personalities. She wanted to start with the pairs and dragons she hoped were easier to handle in her current condition while leaving the more difficult ones for when she was more recovered. 

Of course she would need more than one meeting to decide if she really wanted the pair on her squad, but the first impression was still very important. According to their team leader they should be working on improving their aerial combat skills on the left side of the training field where few floating practice dummy's were set up, and Bellamy spotted the two when they got closer.

He was about to let out a roar to draw their attention, when Amalea stopped him. “Let's watch a little first. I want to see how well they interact with each other while in the air.” He gave a vague noise of agreement, curling up so Amalea could clamber around his wing and settle into the dip between his thigh and body. After some slight shifting to get comfortable, Amalea lifted her gaze up at the dragon flying through the air, the woman on his back doing her best to shoot at the floating dummy's.

It quickly became obvious to both Bellamy and Amalea that the pair above them weren't communicating the way they should be if they wanted to not get in each others way. Tylja frequently dipped or turned just when Shakila lined up her shot, while Shakila in turn asked him to fly straight for loo long and turning them into an easy target.

Amalea assumed they were aware of the problem, but simply didn't know how to fix it, and she couldn't really blame them. Their files stated that they'd bonded only five years ago and that Tylja was the same age as Shakila, meaning that they'd both been sixteen when they bonded.

They'd been thrown into the pairs training program completely blind, and while Amalea knew that latecomers were given time and support to catch up to everyone else, they simply didn't have the kind of in-depth bond and knowledge of each other that years of working together had granted Amalea and Bellamy. Those years of missed lessons were now keeping them for advancing in skill, something that could lead to their deaths if they were unlucky.

“Even if it doesn't work out we should still help them with this. I mean look at them. Tylja just nearly flew into one of the dummy's because Shakila was lining up a shot.” Bellamy's voice was threaded through with concern, his eyes tracking the struggling pair without pause. 

“I agree. Someone else is bound to notice and intervene at some point, but they first have to survive to that point. Should we call them down or do you want to watch a little longer?” Amalea had seen enough so far and Bellamy seemed to agree with her from the way he threw his head back in a toned-down roar. A few sparring dragons looked over, turning back once they noticed that the roar hadn't been directed at them.

Both Shakila and Tylja had startled at Bellamy's roar, leading to the woman missing yet another shot and Tylja to nearly crash into a dummy when he turned his head to search for the source of the sound. He dodged just in time and began his decent after spotting Bellamy's raised wing.

“Oh gods, did you see that? You're going to have your claws full with that one, he's got no situational awareness to speak of.” A very surprising fact considering he was bonded to a stealth specialist. Amalea was hesitant to think that he was better on the ground because she'd never met a dragon that was more comfortable out of the skies, but she supposed it could happen sometimes.

No matter that though, she couldn't bring herself to judge either of them too harshly on their awkwardness with each other. They'd probably been on the right track before the war interrupted their personalized training. Thankfully landing was one thing they didn't have a problem with at all, Tylja gliding down gracefully and touching down with an impressively small dust cloud.

Well, that was one less thing for Bellamy to work on.


	7. Observation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Too weak to participate, Amalea has no choice but to sit back and let Bellamy start helping her first potential recruits with their most glaring problems, if only to keep them from getting killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, minor adjustments to paragraph lengths. Some of those buggers were over ten lines long, which is Hell to read. Thankfully most of them didn't suffer too much if I double-tapped Enter in the middle.

“Good morning. Are you the new captain?” Amalea blinked in surprise, sharing a glace with Bellamy before nodded hesitantly yet. There had been a couple captain's looking to form a squad when they'd still been corporals but it had never happened that anyone had known about them ahead of time aside from maybe their teammates. Shakila noticed their surprise and laughed softly as Tylja settled down.

“You two are pretty famous around here after Mellion's push, you especially.” She nodded at Amalea at the latter part, an expression that nearly looked like respect on her face. “Um. Thanks?” Amalea winched internally at the awkward reply, but she really hadn't expected this. Bellamy hadn't said anything about her becoming well-known after her sprint, he probably hadn't known either since he would have shared if he did.

“Wait, is this the first time you've been outside of the medic area since you were brought in?” Bellamy answered in her stead, knowing that Amalea wasn't really capable of dealing with awkward situations at the moment. “Yes. Her injuries were quite extensive.” He didn't say more, not comfortable sharing in-depth information about just how badly Amalea had been hurt with strangers. Shakila accepted the information with a sympathetic smile, Tylja nodding as well before speaking.

“Word spread quickly that a bonded human from the Shomnai pairs division was the one to set off the emergency signal and half the camp saw you rushed in on a stretcher. Those that didn't were quickly told about what it looked like, although nobody knows who exactly was in the smoking armor the medics rushed through the camp.” Amalea felt Bellamy tense beneath her at the other Villám words and she ran a soothing hand over his flank as she turned the new information over in her head.

She decided to just ignore it for now and get back to her goal of seeing if Shakila and Tylja were compatible with them. 

“Just to get back to your first question, yes, I have recently been promoted to captain and am currently scouting for pairs. There's a high demand for specialist squads, and while I wouldn't normally consider putting one together in my current condition, I already have two specialist pairs saying they want to be a part of my squad. After looking through a few files, I've picked you as potential candidates.”

Shakila managed to smooth over her dumbfounded expression after a few seconds of staring, but Tylja continued to stare at her with wide eyes even as he spoke in a quiet voice.

“Why would you want us? You've been sitting here for a while, you must have seen just how bad we are in aerial combat.” That was not the reaction Amalea had been expecting, although she could understand where it had come from. It was incredibly frustrating to hit what seemed like an unbreakable wall while trying to progress and not be able to get through or around it no matter what you try. Shakila and Tylja knew they weren't good at fighting in the sky, and to have someone that knows about their lack of skill but still wants them on a specialist squad of all things had to be a big shock.

“I'm not going to be nice. You don't know how to work together in the sky when it comes to combat and if that's what I wanted from you I wouldn't have bothered having Bellamy call you down. But combat skills isn't the reason I want you on my squad, it's your stealth skills.” Understanding lit up in Shakila's eyes, while Tylja just seemed relieved.

“Shakila, your file states that you're the best stealth specialist of your generation. Tylja, you started training in stealth only after you bonded with Shakila and yet your landing just now was better than any landing Bellamy has ever done. You barely kicked up any dust, I couldn't hear your paws hitting the ground over the ambient noise and Shakila didn't have to compensate at all for the shock meaning you absorbed it perfectly. As far as I'm concerned that makes up for most of your lack of combat skills. If we help you with some of the more glaring problems you're currently having, I'm sure that you'll improve majorly in that regard. So far I'm not seeing any reason to not take you onto my squad. You can do what I want you to and the things you can't can be fixed.”

The conversation moved quickly after that with Shakila and Tylja saying they would be honored to be on her squad. Amalea and Bellamy were in agreement that they would take the pair on, but for the sake of formality would hold out on their official answer until after the second meeting. Lack of official yes didn't mean they couldn't give the two some tips on how to go about fixing their biggest problems while in the air, with Bellamy eventually flying with them up to the dummy's to show them what they were doing wrong.

Amalea would have loved to join them but she was still too weak to ride Bellamy while in the air, so instead she sat down on a patch of grass and worked up a mental lesson plan to teach Shakila how to compensate for all the elements archers had to deal with while in the air. The younger woman didn't have to be as good as Amalea, very few people were, but the newly promoted captain would prefer it if her human squad-members could at least hit four out of five targets while flying.

There weren't many plans she could make until she knew the exact extent of Shakila's skills with the bow though so Amalea switched over to observing the other pairs on the field, even spotting a few which she had on her list of potential candidates. She was able to discard some of her picks right then and there, like a pair that she'd selected because they had a commendation from a previous team leader saying they were extremely skilled in fighting.

They'd been doing some ground drill, and it quickly became obvious that their synergy fell apart the moment the dragon's paws hit the ground. In the air they were deadly but on the ground? Bianca and Gerald were better fighters than these two and they'd ranked last in their age category for years on end during the monthly spars. That kind of sheer incompetence wasn't something that the other specialists would tolerate and Amalea wasn't about to throw her plan from a cliff for a pair that wasn't marked as a specialist pair, just very good.

It felt arrogant to just dismiss a pair she'd never even talked to even if it was unavoidable if she really wanted to create a proper specialist squad. Specialists weren't too fond of taking orders from someone younger than them as Amalea knew very well from herself. The only way she would be able to make up for her young age and lack of experience leading was to find the perfect balance between being both a relaxed and tough leader. Amalea would have to figure out when to cede to her squad members and when she needed to stand her ground and pull rank.

She'd requested a few books on leadership that she knew her grandfather had tucked away somewhere along with a few reports written by captains of successful specialist squads to prepare herself for the task she was taking on. It might be going well so far with the members she already had, but that was mostly because Mason and Emily were so laid-back while Mounia and the still unknown Bryetag were grateful to her because she'd gotten the camp relocated. Shakila and Tylja were both younger than her and also grateful for the chance to be on a specialist squad, so Amalea didn't expect them to cause too much trouble.

It wouldn't be this easy with the rest of them, the pair with the medically trained human had a note in their files about extreme protectiveness of each other and stubbornness they showed if they thought the other was being put in danger needlessly. Their definition of needlessly spanned a very broad set of circumstances, leading to the pair being held back from the front lines to keep them from causing trouble despite the human's medical skills.

That would be a problem for her to deal with at a later date thankfully as she'd just spotted Bellamy flying in her direction out of the corner of her eye. Shakila and Tylja were following him and already they looked more comfortable with each other than before. Bellamy landed a bit away so he didn't throw dust in her face while Tylja showed off and touched down not more than two meters away from here. Which was really something considering the size of the average Villám.

Bellamy snapped playfully at Tylja's head and nudged him with his wing.

“Nice landing kit. If you two train more with the things I showed you your flying will be just as good as that in no time. But only if you train.” The younger dragon nodded bashfully, his wings gaining a slight purple tint. Amalea repressed the urge to coo at the adorableness of the situation. It seemed Tylja had a slight case of hero-worship going on with Bellamy and dammed if it wasn't the cutest thing. Shakila didn't spot the blush before it faded but the woman knew her dragon better than they did and she could tell exactly what was going on. She just smiled though, sharing an amused look with Amalea before speaking.

“Thank you very much for your help, Lieutenant Bellamy. We'll be sure to train a lot more today and every day after. We're not scheduled for anything anytime soon, so if you want to find us, we'll be here.”

The two pairs said their goodbyes before Tylja and Shakila took off again, Amalea climbing onto Bellamy and settling down in her saddle while panting and rubbing her legs. “I think that's enough fresh air for me today, my legs are starting to ache and get stiff.” Bellamy growled in the back of his throat, his head turning to look at her in concern.

“I really don't like you being injured like this. You're basically helpless right now, anything could happen and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it.” The words would have been hurtful coming from anyone else, but Bellamy wasn't very good at expressing himself with words in the best of circumstances and he got even worse when Amalea was sick or injured. She'd never been hurt this badly or needed this long to recover, which only made things worse.

“I'm already a lot better than I was before, give it a few more weeks and the only thing that'll need to recover will be my fighting shape and maybe my magical system a bit more. Damien said that I'm getting better at the exact rate the medic had expected, which means everything is going well. Besides, the medical area is in the middle of the camp. I'm surrounded on all sides by an army and the only time I leave the tent I'm with you. If something does happen we'll just fly away.”

Bellamy wasn't used to Amalea being in anything less than perfect fighting form, so for her to be like this was very new to him. He didn't know how to deal with her not being able to take him down with a well-placed elbow or enhanced shove. “I know that, but I can't help the fact that I worry. Just shut up and let me fuss.” She snorted while staring at the back of Bellamy's head, eyebrows raised at the embarrassed tilt of his head.


	8. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During a visit from Damien, Amalea comes up with a crazy idea that could change her bond with Bellamy forever. She's desperate to talk to her grandfather, but the strain of her busy day means it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Damien was waiting for them at the tent, the man placing his glowing hands on Amalea's head the moment she slid off Bellamy. Goosebumps rose in the wake of the diagnostic spell as it swept through her, Damien humming as he considered the feedback he got while absently leading her back to the bed.

“Your lungs are fine, the fresh air and movement gave them a boost. The rest of your body also seems in good condition and not affected very much by your little outing, so it's only your legs that still need more time which makes sense since they were the most affected.” Amalea had something else she was anxious to ask about.

“I'm not doing much with it right now, but how's my shoulder doing? I've lost a lot of strength in my arms and I want to start getting that back as soon as possible.” Archery was more than just her specialty, it was her second favorite thing to do, coming just after flying with Bellamy. Damien hummed as he squinted at her shoulder, sweeping one glowing hand over it to do a more in-depth diagnostic scan.

“It's recovering nicely but I wouldn't recommend that you go back to using your usual bow anytime soon. You might be able to handle the drawing weight still but it would place undue strain on the muscles. What you can do is dial back to a starter bow and re-familiarize your arms with the movement and start building the muscle up a little. I'll get one brought to you from the armory tomorrow.”Amalea grinned widely, pulling Damien into an quick hug.

“Thank you so much for everything Damien, you've been absolutely amazing with everything. I couldn't have gotten a better medic to monitor my recovery.” The junior medic in question blushed as he stepped back from the bed, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck.

“I'm just doing my job. You're an amazing fighter and a valuable soldier, it would be a crime to not go all-out when helping you back onto your feet.” Staring at the young man that spent most of his days completely focused in helping her, Amalea realized why the people in the camp were so obsessed with the Runner.

She'd just seen it as doing her job, but sometimes people went above and beyond the call of duty in such a way that you couldn't help but want to thank them for it. It was similar to how she felt about all the medics that had hours of work into fixing the mess she'd made of her body.

“Well, I won't thank you again, for fear we'd be stuck in an endless cycle of gratitude. But I did want to tell you that there's a difference between caring for someone because they're a patient, and caring for someone because you want them to get better. I _noticed_ , Damien, and I appreciate it.”

Damien stared at her with wide eyes, hand dropping to his side. “Um.” She coughed, looking to the side where Bellamy was silently judging her with his eyes. 'Look at the poor man,' they seemed to say. 'you broke him.' She sighed silently, risking a glance at Damien. The man looked like his entire world-view had been turned upside-down and Amalea couldn't help but feel slightly guilty. It hadn't even been a speech or anything, why the hell was he reacting like this?

“Damien?” That finally broke him out of his thoughts, and Amalea blinked at the reverent look in his eyes when he raised his head.

“That's the nicest and most inspiring thing anyone has ever said to me.” She shared a glance with Bellamy, who suddenly looked much more interested in the situation.

“I mean, I didn't say much, just the truth.” Damien shook his head and gave her a radiant smile.

“You're going to be an amazing captain.” And then he walked out of the tent, leaving her to blink in confusion at his sudden exit.

“What just happened?” Bellamy just looking at her silently. Deciding that this whole situation had gotten weird enough, Amalea grabbed one of the books of her bedside table opened it where her feather bookmark was sticking out the top. It was a dreadfully boring but informative text about leadership in the army.

How someone had managed to make accounts about successful officers boring was something Amalea couldn't figure out, but she'd been working her way through the tome anyway since it had been her grandfathers recommendation. Even if he'd only given this book to her as punishment for all the times she'd bothered him, there was bound to be some useful information to be gained from reading it if he bothered taking it with him.

 

\--

 

Amalea woke up confused with only a few aspects still clear in her mind. She forgot those soon as well when she noticed the smell of food drifting into the tent, setting her empty stomach grumbling. Damien walked into the tent as if summoned with a tray in his hands. Noticing that she was awake, he set the tray aside to help her with her pillows, which she still hadn't figured out how to position perfectly. Bringing the tray over and setting it down on her lap, she was greeted with meat, potatoes and some vegetables. In a war camp this was the height of cuisine, and Amalea raised her eyebrows at Damien in a silent question.

“A gift from the colonel. He said to tell you congratulations.” Amalea ignored the questioning tone of the last sentence and smirked. Of course her grandfather would find out that she'd gotten another member for her squad without her having to tell him. Bellamy didn't like talking to her grandfather, and he wouldn't have told anyone except the other squad-members the news, so the old man couldn't have found out from him either.

“Sneaky bastard. How does he always know?” Damien looked ready to have a heart-attack when he realized she'd just called a colonel a bastard, glancing over his shoulder like Vitya was going to walk in right that very second to punish the both of them. It would have been hilarious if he did, but to her disappointment the tent flap wasn't moved by anything but the wind.

“Please don't call the colonel a bastard, Captain, I don't think my nerves can take it.” Amalea just grinned at Damien before digging into her meal. She'd been living off bread and various stews for the past few months, so solid food was a welcome change. The meat was a bit chewy and the potatoes had that slight taste of iron from long-term stasis charms, but Amalea was just happy that she wasn't eating with a spoon for once. Damien gave her food an envious glace, one hand twitching like he wanted to steal a potato off her plate and eat it.

“If you move a single finger in the direction of my food you'll end up with a knife through your hand.” Damien leaned back in his stool, hands hiding themselves behind his back even as he smiled charmingly.

“Are you sure you don't want to share a piece with me? You seemed pretty thankful this afternoon.” Amalea just gave him a flat stare while twirling her knife in her hand.

“Not a chance. You wouldn't share with me either and you know it.”

“I might!” She kept staring.

“Okay I wouldn't, but still.” Bellamy chose that moment to stick his head into the tent without warning, Damien startling at the sudden entrance. Amalea had heard him coming and didn't react, just kept eating her meal even as the dragon's nostrils flared and his eyes shot to her plate.

“Since when do you get officer food?”

“Since the colonel wants to congratulate me.” Damien, having recovered from his shock, looked curious again but Amalea wasn't about to share that she was the granddaughter of a colonel. Especially since Vitya was the one in charge of overseeing the pairs division was in. There would no doubt be an outcry of favoritism if word got out that she was directly related to her superior officer, which her recent promotion would only make worse.

She'd probably be transferred to a different division, which was the last thing she wanted. Finding new squad members at this point would be a headache and a half. Bellamy knew as well as she did that her connection to the colonel wasn't something to be shared lightly and kept silent even when Damien turned his pleading eyes to the dragon.

“I wonder how he always knows when someone in his division is promoted or finds a squad-member for their new squad. It scares me sometimes just how fast he learns about things.” How Amalea loved Bellamy and his quick thinking. He'd just smothered any suspicion Damien had about the relationship between Vitya and Amalea with a few casual comments, and the best thing was that it wasn't even a lie.

Her grandfather did find out about things happening in his division freakishly fast, and she was sure it had something to do with the fact that his partner Emil was only by his side in battle. They had an amazing bond from what she knew and the distance had never made sense to her, so there had to be something. Telepathy, maybe? She'd never heard of a bond being strong enough for that kind of mental connection, but theoretically it should be possible. It was certainly something to think about at a later date .

Amalea finished eating in a rush and flew through her exercises, anxious to talk to Bellamy about her new theory in private. Damien seemed to notice that she was trying to get him to leave for some reason, and bless his medic training, the man left them alone much sooner than he usually did. Amalea waited until after Bellamy confirmed that the coast was clear before rushing to explain her idea.

Telepathic bonds existed, but the bond between the two beings had to be incredibly strong, not to mention based on magic. It mostly happened between ritual mages and their familiars, but in theory it could also work for a bonded dragon pair since the bond was magical. If it _was_ possible, it had to be uncommon or she would have heard about it before. Hadn't he told her a few times that it had only taken a single look for him to bond with Emil? A perfect pair, much like Amalea and Bellamy...

Amalea stopped short at the thought, blinking rapidly as the implications of her idle thought hit her. Now that she thought of it like that, the vague presence she could remember from being unconscious felt a lot like Bellamy when she a scouting spell.

“Bellamy, Bellamy!” The Villám was brought out of his own thoughts at her call, his head coming closer as she excitedly waved her hands at him.

“Remember when Vitya compared his bond with Emil to the bond between you and me? While I was unconscious, I vaguely remember some sort of presence forcing me to wake up. It felt like you, Bellamy. I think that might have been the mental representation of our bond.” She still sure if it was actually possible, she'd have to ask her grandfather about it, but it would change everything if it was.

“Really?” It more of an exclamation of wonder rather than an actual question, so Amalea didn't bother answering. Bellamy hummed thoughtfully, his voice gravely when he continued.

“We should ask Vitya about it tomorrow. You're not in any state to go investigating right now, and there's nowhere else we're going to find information about this.” She nodded, staring at the canvas wall of the tent as she thought.

“It's too bad really, I would have loved to do some experimenting first.” A breath of wind ruffled the bed sheet as Bellamy snorted.

“It might just be a good thing you can't move around as much right now, it'll keep you out of trouble. Now go read your boring training, I have an appointment with Mason and Emily. I'm going to leave Shakila and Tylja with them tomorrow, they've got more experience than I do.” Amalea nodded distractedly, nose already buried in her book. She only let her satisfied smile show when Bellamy withdrew his head from the tent.

Her squad was already coming together and she'd only been properly working on it for a day. Bellamy had a tendency to adopt any younger dragon that needed help and keep them under his wing until they didn't need him anymore, pun intended. Mason and Emily also had the same tendency, except it had been Bellamy and her they'd into their care.

If Bellamy introduced them to Shakila and Tylja, who needed the pairs help more than they did, it would hopefully draw them into the training group that was taking shape. Nothing really brought warriors together like training and battle, mostly because you tend to care less about how much you dislike a person when they're saving you from turning into a pincushion. Gods knows that Amalea had gotten over many grudges during tense moments while training with soldiers she didn't get along with.

 


End file.
